Something Cozy This Way Comes
Or, Autumn in Denmark
In the time I was gone biking last week whatever norse spirits that rule over the weather here snipped some threads and threw a few earwigs into the cauldron or something because when I got home the air had an edge that I can only describe as crisp or even, (get ready) autumnal.
You guys, I’m in the mood. The gloves are out. I wore long johns under my jeans today. It’s fall. Fall is here. I’m giddy, because this feels like my first real fall. In a spasmodic episode of schadenfreude I took a peek at the weather report back home in California. It was swinging violently between 50 degree nights at 85 degree days. I smugly blew the steam off my spiced tea, curled my toes in my woolen stockings, and finally felt glad for Denmark’s decisive seasons.
Spring is the season of rebirth and new skins. Winter is the time to hibernate and be with family. Summer is the season to cartwheel and turn your nose up to the heavy California sun, but to me autumn is the time of slow return and settling into yourself. I feel like a roosting chicken, scratching and snuggling into a divot in the dusty earth. In the fall of my childhood the garden would go to seed and dry, and we’d use our thumbnails to split beans and shake out the pearly seeds. The squash and gourds would be lined up on the porch like sentinels, and we’d decorate acorns with lichens and eucalyptus caps to look like little forest people. I still look forward to the earthy thwop of root vegetables being pulled, and my dad always calls a family work day where we harvest and peel pounds of persimmons to hang and slowly dry, their sugars rising on pale skin to form a sweet and gummy crust. Fall is the season where my memories are most sensorially saturated.
So, I must make new autumn traditions here that I can return to in the annals of memory someday. Maybe tradition isn’t the right word, because that implies repetition and this is likely a bit of a one-off era for me, geographically. But I think what I’m after is a familiar feeling, that cozy, seasonal sense of coming home to myself, even in a place I haven’t spent an autumn before.
Here is how I am finding my fall:
If you couldn’t tell from above, many of my memories are tied to the garden. I found a place to tug root veggies out over here, its called Øens Have, and it’s incredible. Øens Have is an organic urban farm on Copenhagen’s Refshaleøen, where vegetables, flowers, chickens, and herbs grow amid the industrial surroundings. They have the classic Copenhagen trifecta: gorgeous vegetarian communal meals, being run by 20 somethings that are cooler than you, and immaculately organized volunteering. When I went last Tuesday I picked tomatoes until my hands were sticky and smelled piquant, played with the new kittens Pickle and Harley, and threw the grubs hiding in the Chinese cabbage to the chickens. It has such amazing vibes, to all the prospective green thumbed students reading this you should certainly check it out.
Cooking seasonally is important to me, and working at the farmers market gives me access to some lovely local ingredients. I look forward every week to the leftover cheese from Copenhagen Goat Milk and the gorgeous lacinato kale from Uschi og Davide. I think eating the correct foods in the correct season gets your body and mind on the same page, so I've been doing a lot of roasted squash bowls with quinoa or lentils, some harvest stews with thickly cut potatoes and kale, and have started making my own granola with lots of seeds and nuts to keep full and warm as the days get colder. I would attatch photos but I ususally remember to take them only after I've cleared my plate.
As the darkness approaches, and there are more spare hours or twilight around the morning and night, I find myself reading more. I am currently reading Tender is the Night, which is a sun drenched euro summer Fitzgerald book that I can't necessarily recommend for fall vibes, but it is an incredible read for fans of Fitzgerald's lyrically twisting 1930s prose. I am also listening to the audio book of Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, and something about the Transatlantic accent the narrator reads the book with both makes me laugh out loud and really brings it to life.
Leaning into handicrafts is an excellent way to invite fall into your life. I just finished crocheting this awesomely thick wool hood. It keeps my ears warm in the desperately windy Copenhagen evenings and is so thick it’s actually water resistant. I am also felting some slippers to keep my poorly circulated toes alive.
Apparently my fall self needs a task. There is probably something to the fact that so many of my memories and plans for the season require my hands, like plucking tomatoes, peeling persimmons, or just pulling a loop of wool through another loop of wool. Though I am a long way from our fall garden, I seem to need to still find little jobs for myself. There is a particular pleasure in being far from home and finding that when left to your own devices you still know what you like, and I think that is what is at the core of my autumnal “return to self” may be. Next October I might be somewhere complaining about the late heat, but then I’ll look fondly upon my wool hood and remember my first truly cozy fall, think about my long johns and the communal garden and pine for the ache of the bracing Copenhagen wind.
This is so hygge! Great read!